House takes on teenage criminals

AUSTIN — When and under what circumstances should 17-year-olds suspected of a crime be tried as adults? This is a question the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee will ask legal experts and criminal justice reform advocates Tuesday.

This issue comes up for discussion periodically because Texas is one of only 10 states that treat underage criminal suspects as adults.

All of the 17-year-olds arrested, including those charged with misdemeanors, are automatically sent through the adult system, regardless of the severity of their alleged offense, committee member Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, said in a statement.

The overwhelming majority of arrested 17-year-olds are charged with misdemeanors, and the primary crimes for which they are arrested are larceny theft, drug possession, misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct and violation of underage liquor laws, Canales said.

Canales, an attorney, does not like how the Texas law has worked.

“Serious concerns nationwide and in Texas have been raised regarding whether placing 17-year-olds, who are still not adults, under the control of the adult criminal justice system, where they are more likely to become hardened criminals, and where they are more vulnerable to physical and sexual assaults than in juvenile justice facilities,” Canales said.

The law is quite clear about when it comes to juveniles suspected of a crime.

“Are you 10 or older but under the age of 17?” the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asks in the agency’s website. “If so, under state law, you are a juvenile,” the website’s Texas Teen Page says.

“When juveniles aged 10 through 16 break the law, they go before a juvenile court judge,” the page reads. “If you are 17 or older, you are an adult, subject to the adult justice system.”

Criminal Jurisprudence Committee chairman Abel Herrero said one of the key issues the panel intends to address is whether the age for charging 17-year-olds as adults should be raised.

“We’re going to hear a lot of expert testimony, so it should be a very meaningful discussion,” said Herrero, D-Robstown.

Moreover, this is an interim charge House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, assigned this year, Herrero said in reference to issues the lawmakers take an in-depth look at the year before they are back in session.

Thus, there is a good possibility of drafting legislation aimed at reforming the state’s juvenile system.

The public hearing will be held a week after the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think-tank, released a study in which the authors argue that while the arrests of minors dropped 52 percent nationwide in 10 years, this hasn’t been the case in Texas.

Many young Texans are detained for minor violations such as truancy and running away, according to Marc Levin and Derek Cohen, authors of the study.

“Incarcerating or otherwise removing these youth from their homes increases the likelihood that they will be converted from today’s status offenders to tomorrow’s serious offenders, instead of being shepherded toward productive lives as young adults,” Levin and Cohen wrote.

The 11-page report, “Kids Doing Time for What’s Not a Crime: The Over-Incarceration of Status Offenders,” issues the following warning: “Research shows that status offenders, as a result of being exposed to seriously delinquent youth in close quarters, are in jeopardy of developing the more deviant attitudes and behaviors of higher-risk youth, such as anti-social perspectives and gang affiliation.”